I got in the mood to share the director’s cut of this fic and it is currently quite late, so it will be a bit rambly, but sit with me for four things: the title & some translation issues, why I wrote it, the lines that inspired it, and the songs that did. Let's get into it.
titles, and a whole lot of German:
The title was one of the earliest things that stood firm about this fic, though I don’t remember when it came to me or why. “brass” in this case was meant to refer to the informal term for the highest echelons of the military, and while technically a colonel is already part of what you’d call brass– well, it just had a ring to it. Summed up the alleged main conflict quite well, too.
If I had to give it an alternative title, it would have been a shortened version of the Goethe quote “Ich bin zu alt, um nur zu spielen, zu jung, um ohne Wunsch zu sein.” (transl. "I am too old to only play; too young to be without desire.") which was also halfway the thought behind the “Rawne may have been young enough to dream, but too old to not see the truth.” line.
This brings me to THE translation issue i’ve been whining to everyone in my vicinity about: me not being a native English speaker, in fact it isn’t even my second language. There’s a verb in German, “sich bekennen”, which means to commit to someone, often verbally, voice your support, though none of these meanings really nail the meaning. What sets it apart from any English translation is that in German it’s deliciously ambiguous, as it can mean professionally, platonically, romantically, you name it, and I was just dying to use it the entire time but couldn’t. So, in a German AU Rawne would ask Gaunt sich zu ihm zu bekennen with all its ambiguity. Rawne would also probably use Du for Gaunt from day one, while Gaunt would use Sie up until and after they’ve already made out. Trust me on this.
The line about “a kind of powerlessness that he believed only himself and the unconscious truly understood” is also a little German joke because the word for unconsciousness (Ohnmacht) literally translates to “without power” and is often used to translate powerlessness. I might have pulled that one before, actually.
there are two things that that practically launched this entire fic, the first being this line:
‘These orders are direct from the Lord Executor, and they supersede all others.’
Rawne wiped his mouth.
‘Why isn’t he talking to me himself?’ he asked.
‘Don’t be an arse. Because he’s the Lord Executor and he’s got shit on his plate. This is vital work, Rawne. I’m going to brief you, so get ready.‘
Divorce era. Anyways. The second being that, plainly put, I was not entirely satisfied with the last few books.
Gaunt and Rawne’s rivalry has always been a reoccurring point of the plot and while post-Gereon I see it as largely resolved, rather than it changing, it felt more like it fizzled out. Gaunt having his big moments, Rawne a lot fewer, and the intersections of their stories falling short.
Rawne in the hospital could have been, in my opinion, a nice mirror of the events of In Remembrance. Their last interaction felt unintentionally rushed for enemies-to-friends of 24+ years, so I took my liberties with it.
It’s worth to note that Dan Abnett has always had a tendency to cut his endings very short, at least when it comes to GG, and with this being the last book for now, it probably made a stronger impression than the rest.
As for my personal reasons for writing this fic, my friend @marsskop said it best: “we do miss people and opportunities and find ourselves in situations without any escape.”
Sometimes we are faced with the insurmountable tragedy of simply living in the times we live in, in the places we are, and wanting the things and people we want. Putting the hopelessness, sadness, and anger it inspires into writing was cathartic, that's all.
lines referenced or other thoughts:
‘So that’s what it feels like’ was what he’d told Gaunt after hearing the news, but never lost another word on what that was supposed to be.
this one is super obvious but it is, of course, along with their earlier conversation-
’Urdesh is won. This is a victory.’
‘So that’s what it feels like,’ said Rawne.
He looked at Gaunt.
‘Is it true what I heard? Kolea?’
- also a nod to the title of one of the short stories called “This Is What Victory Feels Like (Forever The Same)”. Forever the Same, the old Tanith toast, also makes an appearance later, because come on. Commitment to the bit.
“Gaunt was a good man, but one that always had a mind for the war, not the feelings of people.”
Gaunt himself says he’s consumed by the war,
[...] Merity Chass of the Verghast House Chass, had insisted that he follow his father into war and learn the trade and value of combat from someone who excelled at it. Excelled. Not the right word, Gaunt thought. Someone who was entirely devoured by it.
but the other half was more personal observation + this quote said by Ana Curth:
‘If you truly know Gaunt, you know he is distant. Alone. He has been his whole life. It’s the old affliction of command. As a colonel and as a commissar, he has to stand apart, to retain his authority, and that makes him remote. I know damn well he’s impossible to reach, and I think his life has made it hard for him to reach out.‘
What endears me to Gaunt is that he’s a great commander, but in the way he always felt a bit like a better colonel than commissar to me (largely in discipline matters, see: The Cuu situation) and by how he treats Curth, a fumble so bad it might as well make it into the later history of the crusades, he’s .. not that good with people, off the clock. And honestly, hell yeah boy, me too.
“Streaks of grey had begun to grow into it, soon to be erased by a close crop and the treatments the Astra sponsored its officers that kept them going in active duty far beyond other men their age.“
These were simply additional thoughts I had that I wanted to bring into the fic, mainly because at some point I started calculating everyone's ages and noticed, damn, these bitches old. Gaunt himself is 41 at the time of First and Only, because we get a flashback to 29 years earlier where he is about twelve, putting him at 65+ at the time of the last book, according to the timetable in Lexicanum. Rawne’s age is not mentioned, at least not one that I could find, but Feygor is stated to be in his thirties in the beginning, and even if you count Rawne as the same age, that would still make him long over 50 in the end. That’s no age to still be in active duty. Then again, we can also subtract 10 years for the warp shenanigans aboard the Armaduke, but the point stands. Logically, Gaunt could have access to rejuv with his elevated status, but whatever the senior officers get probably is not quite as name-brand.
“Worse than any trench fight he had ever been in, sure as sure.”
Him calling Gaunt my lord executor is because this gay-ass line
’Are my orders clear and comprehended, colonel?’
‘They are. They are… my lord militant.’
“[..]The ways of the Astra Militarum. How it took your life from you.”
Not precisely with this but generally speaking, sometimes I think I have crafted a cool paragraph that correctly extrapolates something interesting from the text or characters or just reads nice and then I open the book and ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
‘Those who serve the Astra Militarum pay with their lives. All of them. It’s just that some do it in one moment, and others do it for the rest of their days’
so in the end it just comes out looking like basic literacy
“Well—” replied Rawne, “what any of us want has never really factored into the scheme of things, has it?"
BELIEVE IT OR NOT. DIRECTLY STOLEN.
‘Well, I tell you this much,’ said Baskevyl, ‘when he does come back, Rawne won’t like you doing that any more than I do. Because he doesn’t want to be colonel any more than I do.’
‘Well,’ replied Hark philosophically, ‘what any of us “want” has never really factored into the scheme of things, has it?’
‘In the regiment?’
‘In the Astra Militarum.‘
“Gaunt had once said over an encounter with Ban Daur and his wife, Elodie, that he knew love when he saw it, because he never saw it very much.”
And she makes you stronger,’ Gaunt said, looking at Elodie. ‘I know love when I see it, because I don’t see it very much.’
Fun fact: most mentions of love in the last omnibus pertain to these two OR Dalin and Yoncy. How about we all cry, huh?
On hope, will looking through my highlighted passages I also found these thoughts of Mkoll as he’s being thrown around the Armaduke:
Duty had ceased to be a concept. Hope was revealed to be a laughably perishable quantity. Victory was an empty promise someone once made.
And on that last note, shoutout to my favorite line:
’Courage is transient,’ said Zweil. ‘Like flowers and pain and also soft cheeses. The things that matter are the things that last. Faith. Belief. And hope is surprisingly durable.’
Songs this was written to in order of most to least fitting the vibe
Starlight - Muse (“Starlight, I will be chasing a starlight / Until the end of my life /I don't know if it's worth it anymore / Hold you in my arms / I just wanted to hold you in my arms”)
Bringin’ on the Heartbreak - Def Leppard (well, yeah?)
Guiding Lights - Ghost (I vividly remember sitting on @definitely-not-iorveth couch and reading The Warmaster while we listened to the new album 3 times in a row, but also “That the road that leads to nowhere is long / And that those who seek to go there are lost” can be about the Imperial Guard with the right kind of brainrot)
Absolutnie, absolutnie - Sorry Boys (peak romance, if a bit too positive)
Heat Of The Moment - Asia (why)
Anyways, that's it! If you read until here, thank you. You may be entitled to a veteran's discount
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